New North Fork vineyard uses technology to plant 60,000 vines

Long Island wine country is relying on technology to plant the biggest new vineyard on the North Fork in nearly a quarter century. 

With automated, precision planting and months of sculpting the land the way some managers sculpt golf courses, Vine on Mill may also be a contender for the North Fork's prettiest vineyard. 

For the past four months, vineyard manager Bill Ackerman has led the effort to plant 60,000 vines using a global-positioning satellite system set on a tractor that drives itself. A similar system is being used to precisely set 13,000 posts along hundreds of rows, many up to 1,000 yards long. The rows flow up and down finely sculpted, sloping hills and along gently rising fields along a section on Mill Lane in Mattituck.

"I'm going to make that a special road," said Randy Frankel, a former Goldman Sachs managing director and Hofstra University graduate who owns the property, in an interview with Newsday Friday. "I'm really going to pretty it up." 

Vanishing points of vines and posts trail off in all directions — thousands of straight wooden posts above newly sprouted grape vines contained in straight white grow tubes that protect them during their first year of growth. The structures create perfect lines along bucolic Mill Lane and off into the distance of this historic North Fork property, which also bears a 1712-era farm house previously owned by the Ruland family. 

Frankel has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars restoring the Ruland farmhouse, which he vowed to the former owner that he'd never take down. Work and planting for the vineyard — once a potato, hay and sod farm — has run "into the millions, plural," Frankel said. The vines alone, hand-selected and shipped in refrigerator trucks, mostly from California, cost around $4 each. 

Once the vineyard is established this year, the plan — with Southold Town approval — ultimately is to have a winery and tasting room on the property, Frankel said. He expects it will be open only to members of his two existing vineyard/wineries. 

Frankel, who with his family also owns Rose Hill Vineyards in Mattituck and Croteaux Vineyards in Southold, hired longtime North Fork vineyard manager Ackerman to prep and populate this land with the new vines, using cabernet franc, petit verdot, cabernet sauvignon, malbec, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and merlot.

Ackerman, a former software executive with Netscape and Oracle who once co-owned 65-acre Manor Hill Vineyard in Cutchogue, is managing Vine on Mill vineyards through his North Fork Viticultural Services business, operating since 2008.

Ackerman, who currently owns an 8-acre vineyard beside a 17-acre beef pasture, has seen vineyard planting evolve over the years from hand planting to the use of lasers. He encouraged use of the latest GPS system because of its accuracy and the special contours of the Mattituck property. "With a GPS planter, the degree of accuracy is 1 centimeter, which is barely the width of that pencil," he said. The equipment was leased from Canada. 

Ackerman spent months in an earth mover sculpting the land to create the rolling contours. Next came soil amendments to prep the land after testing soil samples from 47 points around the 50-acre property to create just the right blend of fertilizers and minerals, particularly lime. 

Planting started the first week of May and took just under six days to complete, Ackerman said. While driving itself, the GPS tractor dropped in vines every 4 feet, with 8 feet of spacing between rows. It's slightly larger than a 7-by-4-foot spacing used by others in the region (some go down to 5-by-3 feet), but Ackerman said it's best for Long Island's more humid air to help keep the vines healthy.

Once all the posts are set in coming weeks, Ackerman and his crew will install drip lines for irrigation, and eight wires to support the vines and the irrigation lines — more than 100 miles of heavy-gauge wire in all, Frankel said. "The amount of materials we had to get — it's mind-boggling," he said.

For Ackerman, the work of tending the vines, already underway, begins in earnest next year, with some 20 protocols for nurturing them into production, including fruit thinning, spraying, hedging and pruning. 

For Frankel, a serious wine advocate, the payoff will be in the grapes. 

Noting Long Island's climate is similar to that of the Bordeaux region of France, he said, "We have an opportunity to grow fruit of the same [caliber] as some of the big boys across the planet."

By Mark Harrington

mark.harrington@newsday.comMHarringtonNews

Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.